Longtime St. Josaphat and St. Joseph Tridentine Mass altar server Christopher Din will be entering formation for the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate in Buffalo, New York in August. The O.M.I.s are best known for their operation of the Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows in Belleville, Illinois, a pilgrimage site with a giant outdoor church somewhat reminiscent of the Hollywood Bowl. Your prayers for Chris’ vocation are appreciated.

Bus Tour to Historic Churches in Toronto, Montreal, and Quebec

Prayer Pilgrimages will be offering its annual pilgrimage to the historic churches of Toronto, Montreal, and Quebec City Sunday-Saturday, July 9-15. At press time it was not certain that Tridentine Masses will be included in this year’s trip. For further information or to register, call organizer Michael Semaan at (248) 250-6005.

Ornate Hosts

Sacred art comes in many forms. One relatively rarely seen art form is the design of ornate priest’s hosts. The vast majority of hosts are plain white or wheat designs, but a small number of vendors offer hosts embossed with religious symbolism.

At Holy Name of Mary Church in Windsor, the St. Benedict Tridentine Community has started to use a beautiful type of priest’s host. Each box of hosts contains a variety of designs, all with elaborate religious imagery.

What purpose does this serve? It does not make the host any more sacred, but it does provide an edifying image to both the celebrant and those close enough to the altar to be moved by the image they may be able to see.

Miles Christi Update

Several readers had expressed concerns about the Tridentine Mass that has been offered at the Miles Christi Family Center Chapel in South Lyon, Michigan on Saturdays at 8:30 AM. It had blended elements of the Low and High Mass in ways which the rubrics do not allow. Unlike in the Ordinary Form, in the Traditional Latin Mass one cannot pick and choose which elements of those two Mass forms one likes; one must follow the rules which clearly define and distinguish one from the other. We are pleased to report that a few weeks ago, the priests of Miles Christi corrected their celebration of Holy Mass and are now offering Low Masses that adhere to the defined norms.

Benjamim Bloomfield’s Chant App Shown to Pope Benedict

Deacon Richard Bloomfield’s son Benjamin sings in a chant choir in Cincinnati, Ohio. He wrote a “Chant Tools” app for use on Android and Apple devices which presents Propers in various tones, as an alternative to using the Liber Usuális book. Adam Bartlett, who has taught chant at Chicago’s Mundelein Seminary, on May 18 had an opportunity to demonstrate the app to none other than Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. Congratulations to Benjamin, who joins our own Chant Sheet author Michel Ozorak in using modern technology to bring this timeless music to a modern audience.

Addressing Fr. Peter Hrytsyk

Since Fr. Peter was elevated to the rank of Archpriest on June 11, some readers have inquired how to address him. He is still to be called “Fr. Peter”, but correspondence to him should now be addressed to “The Very Reverend Fr. Peter Hrytsyk”. He was presented with a special cross to be worn around the neck as a sign of his new rank.

TLM at the EU

A Polish member of the European Parliament arranged for two Tridentine Masses to be celebrated on the grounds of the Parliament in Brussels, on May 4 and May 18. A remarkable achievement at such a secular institution, but one that certainly celebrates Europe’s Christian – and more specifically Catholic – heritage.

Polish Prime Minister’s Son Celebrates First TLM

In other news from the Polish political scene, on Sunday, June 4, the newly-ordained Fr. Tymoteusz Szydlo, son of Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo, celebrated his first Holy Mass in the Extraordinary Form, at an FSSP church in Krakow. His mother’s Law and Justice Party espouses traditional Catholic teachings on life and marriage issues.

[Comments? Please e-mail tridnews@detroitlatinmass.org. Previous columns are available at http://www.detroitlatinmass.org. This edition of Tridentine Community News, with minor editions, is from the St. Albertus (Detroit), Academy of the Sacred Heart (Bloomfield Hills), and St. Alphonsus and Holy Name of Mary Churches (Windsor) bulletin inserts for June 24, 2017. Hat tip to Alex Begin, author of the column.]

* NB: The SSPX chapels among those Mass sites listed above are posted here because the Holy Father has announced that "those who during the Holy Year of Mercy approach these priests of the Fraternity of St Pius X to celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation shall validly and licitly receive the absolution of their sins," and subsequently extended this privilege beyond the Year of Mercy. These chapels are not listed among the approved parishes and worship sites on archdiocesan websites.

Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Edward Pentin (National Catholic Register, June 21, 2017) writes: "Theologian and former consulter to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith calls on the Pope to make a declaration of faith, warning that unless the Pope safeguards doctrine, he cannot impose discipline." Read more here >>

Sunday, June 18, 2017

Hemingway rejected the sentimental piety of his mother and the liberal 'social gospel' of the Methodism in which he was raised in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park. After witnessing the brutalities of war in Europe, he could no longer accept the conceits about the 'perfectibility of man' found in his erstwhile suburban Methodist religious culture.

One of the most striking early remarks by Hemingway is in a letter to Ernest Walsh, dated January 2, 1926, in which he refers to himself a Catholic in connection with the Sacrament of extreme unction given to him on the battlefield:

If I am anything I am a Catholic. Had extreme unction administered to me as such in July 1918 and recovered. So guess I am a super-catholic.... Am not what is called a ‘good’ catholic.... But cannot imagine taking any other religion seriously.

Nickel then observes:

It is impossible to know exactly what occurred on the battlefield between Hemingway and the priest, but regardless, there is ample evidence that Hemingway practiced Catholic rituals and that he talked and wrote to others about being a Catholic after World War I. Also, the results of a canonical inquest into Hemingway’s standing in the Catholic Church by the Archdiocese of Paris – which on April 25, 1927 reported he was “certified a Catholic in good standing” -- are telling.

One cannot, of course, sidestep the brute fact of his subsequent depression and suicide in Idaho in 1961. But there is clearly more than meets the eye in the standard secular accounts of Hemingway's life and work.

Disclaimer: These are the author’s initial reactions to his first experience of the Ambrosian Rite Mass and are not meant to be authoritative descriptions of the rite.

This year’s Sacra Liturgía conference was held in Milan, Italy June 6-9. As always, it was an informative and uplifting experience. One feels intimately connected to the worldwide Latin Mass movement at such an event, being part of an international crowd with likeminded interests.
Vatican Congregation of Divine Worship Prefect Cardinal Robert Sarah once again delivered the keynote address, in which he reiterated his recommendation from last year for priests to celebrate the Ordinary Form of Holy Mass ad oriéntem. This year His Eminence also made the case for Holy Communion to be received kneeling and on the tongue. Cardinal Raymond Burke delivered an address about the positive effects of the first ten years of Summórum Pontificum. Former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò was in attendance, as were several other bishops and countless priests.

A principal objective of this year’s event was exposing the attendees to the Ambrosian Rite. The rite, named after Milan’s Patron Saint, St. Ambrose, is native to the Archdiocese of Milan; it is also used at a handful of other locations in Italy and Switzerland. Several talks on the history of the rite were presented, and Masses and Vespers in the traditional and modern forms of the rite were offered. An elaborate Traditional Ambrosian Solemn Mass in the Presence of a Greater Prelate [Cardinal Burke] was offered in the standing-room-only Church of Sant’Alessandro in Zebedia. [Photo above; both photos by Sacra Liturgía]

Unlike the Traditional Premonstratensian, a.k.a. Norbertine, Rite, which has only a few variations from the Traditional Latin Mass, the Traditional Ambrosian Rite differs in some significant ways:

There are three readings instead of two. There are two additional chanted Propers: an Antiphon after the Gospel and a Confractórium Antiphon after the Canon during the breaking of the host. The Confractórium takes the place of the Agnus Dei, which is omitted in the Ambrosian Rite.

In both the Masses and the Vespers offered at the conference, there were elements shared with the Byzantine Rite: There were several instances of Kyrie, eleison chanted back and forth. There were Dóminus vobíscum’s at unexpected points, such as before antiphons. Unlike its restrained handling in the Tridentine Mass, the thurible – without a lid – is swung around in an expansive circular motion, almost like a lasso.

Only four priests in the Archdiocese of Milan are familiar with the Traditional Ambrosian Rite. As a result, that version is only offered in two locations.

The Modern Ambrosian Rite shares many of the characteristics of the traditional version, though the celebrant may face the people. This rite is the norm in most parishes in Milan. In the Modern Ambrosian Mass offered at the conference in the Basilica of St. Ambrose, the first reading was, oddly, not taken from Sacred Scripture, but was rather a history of Ss. Ambrose, Gervase, and Protase. The Sign of Peace takes place before the Offertory.

Musically, there is a whole repertoire of Ambrosian Chant, whose sound is quite rich and full, sonically falling somewhere between the often thin Gregorian Chant and complex polyphony. Many of our readers are familiar with the Ambrosian Glória, which the Milanese call Glória Tono Festívo. An updated book of Ambrosian Chant was introduced at the conference.

Perhaps the most moving moment in all of the liturgies offered took place at the beginning of the Modern Ambrosian Rite Mass. As the entrance procession arrived at the altar, the two acolytes and crucifer turned to face the clergy behind them. The clergy and servers in the procession turned to face each other, while the celebrant remained at the back of the procession [photo above]. The choir then began a 12-fold Kyrie, alternating with the clergy. A video of this entrance is here, with the Kyrie beginning at 2:30:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8kDr4_kPlQ

Sat. 06/24 8:30 AM: Low Mass at Miles Christi (Nativity of St. John the Baptist)

[Comments? Please e-mail tridnews@detroitlatinmass.org. Previous columns are available at http://www.detroitlatinmass.org. This edition of Tridentine Community News, with minor editions, is from the St. Albertus (Detroit), Academy of the Sacred Heart (Bloomfield Hills), and St. Alphonsus and Holy Name of Mary Churches (Windsor) bulletin inserts for June 18, 2017. Hat tip to Alex Begin, author of the column.]

The last episode of Season 1 of Extraordinary Faith has been posted to YouTube and Vimeo for viewing on-line. This episode, as well as all of the other episodes of Season 1, continues to be re-run on a weekly basis by EWTN on all of their global satellite feeds. EWTN’s strong support for Extraordinary Faith is directly attributable to the feedback they receive at viewer@ewtn.com, and we thank our readers who have taken the time to send in a good word.

Episode 11 – San Francisco Part 2 of 2 – begins with an interview with Fr. Joseph Illo, pastor of Star of the Sea Parish in San Francisco, who is attempting to organize an Oratory of St. Philip Neri there. He explains what an Oratory is, and the noteworthy Oratories in London, Birmingham, and Oxford, England, and Toronto, Ontario, all of which are renowned for traditional liturgy.

The Tridentine Mass isn’t the only form of traditional Catholic liturgy that is regaining popularity in modern times. The traditional Dominican Rite is also enjoying a resurgence, and one of its proponents and celebrants, Fr. Anselm Ramelow, OP, Associate Professor at the Dominican School of Philosophy & Theology in Berkeley, California, explains what it is and how it differs from the Roman Rite. We interview Fr. Anselm in San Francisco’s Dominican parish, appropriately named St. Dominic, and pastor Fr. Michael Hurley gives us a tour of this English Gothic church.

Traditional orders continue to grow and be founded. Fr. Vito Perrone – no relation to Detroit’s Fr. Eduard Perrone – explains the mission of his new order, the Contemplatives of St. Joseph, which offers both the Extraordinary and Ordinary Forms in San Francisco.

Next we head to the southern part of the Bay Area, to San Jose, the hub of Silicon Valley. You would expect to see modern buildings housing tech companies there, but you might be surprised to discover a beautiful historic church, Five Wounds Portuguese National Church, which is home to a Latin Mass community. Canon Olivier Meney of the Institute of Christ the King takes us on a tour.

When you think of Marin County, located north of San Francisco on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge, you might think of vineyards and beautiful vistas. In the midst of that scenic countryside is the St. Vincent School for Boys, a residential school for disadvantaged young men which has an expansive, architecturally ornate campus. The centerpiece is a stunning chapel which hosts a Tridentine Mass community on Sundays. Facilities Director Jacqui Devine gives us a tour.

Episode 11 may be viewed on the Extraordinary Faith channels on YouTube and Vimeo. A high-res direct link is here: https://vimeo.com/164106931. Soon it will also be viewable – along with some behind-the-scenes photos – on our web site, www.extraordinaryfaith.tv. As always, we encourage you to like the Extraordinary Faith page on Facebook, so you’ll be notified about the latest air dates and additional info about the places we visit.

Season 2 of Extraordinary Faith will debut soon. It begins with a local slant: The first three episodes cover our local Latin Mass scene here in Windsor and Detroit. Details will be provided when EWTN sets their broadcast schedule.

Tridentine Masses This Coming Week

Mon. 06/12 7:00 PM: Low Mass at St. Josaphat (St. John of San Fecundo, Confessor)

[Comments? Please e-mail tridnews@detroitlatinmass.org. Previous columns are available at http://www.detroitlatinmass.org. This edition of Tridentine Community News, with minor editions, is from the St. Albertus (Detroit), Academy of the Sacred Heart (Bloomfield Hills), and St. Alphonsus and Holy Name of Mary Churches (Windsor) bulletin inserts for June 11, 2017. Hat tip to Alex Begin, author of the column.]

Saturday, June 17, 2017

The republicans know this but they will not fight against the establishment which hired Mueller to take Trump out.

Politically, Trump is a dead man walking and his executioner is man whose hands are covered with the same blood that Irish Mobster, and rifleman man Flemmi, spilled in Boston with the knowledge and assistance of the FBI.

It may be the worst scandal in FBI history: Joseph Salvati spent three decades in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. He was put there by uncorroborated, false testimony from an informant under the protection of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. There is compelling evidence that the Bureau knew Salvati was an innocent man and then conspired to keep him in prison for more than three decades. Knowledge of the Bureau’s actions seems to have gone right to the very top; documents uncovered recently show that then-Director J. Edgar Hoover monitored the case from Washington.

The FBI scandal was investigated for two years by the House Government Reform Committee, then under the chairmanship of Congressman Dan Burton (R-IN), who introduced legislation to remove Hoover’s name from FBI headquarters as a result of what he learned.

But the scandal gets worse than that. When Burton tried to acquire official records on the case from the Justice Department, he was stonewalled, and Attorney General John Ashcroft persuaded President George W. Bush to invoke “executive privilege” to block the committee’s subpoenas. This was President Bush’s first, and thus far only, use of executive privilege to withhold information from the Congress. Some think Bush is trying to protect current FBI Director Robert Mueller, who was in the U.S. Attorney’s office in Boston during part of the relevant time period. The confrontation with Burton prompted columns on the controversy by William Safire and Robert Novak.

Sat. 10:00 AM: High Mass and Novena to Our Lady of Perpetual Help at St. Joseph Oratory, Detroit. On this Feast of the Nativity of John the Baptist, Saturday June 24, a High Mass will be offered at 10AM by Fr. Zachary John Akers, FSSP, the present Director of Development for the Fraternity.

* NB: The SSPX chapels among those Mass sites listed above are posted here because the Holy Father has announced that "those who during the Holy Year of Mercy approach these priests of the Fraternity of St Pius X to celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation shall validly and licitly receive the absolution of their sins," and subsequently extended this privilege beyond the Year of Mercy. These chapels are not listed among the approved parishes and worship sites on archdiocesan websites.

"One would think that in a book about human sexuality, an author writing from a Catholic perspective would identify the specific sexual struggles of the moral life in Christ as the sixth commandment bears upon them, and the corresponding sexual sins against chastity. But no, they receive no attention; they do not figure in this book at all."

Echeverria's article carries the following quote as a welcome caveat given the disposition of Fr. Martin's book:

“There is an organic connection between our spiritual life and the dogmas. Dogmas are lights along the path of faith; they illuminate it and make it secure. Conversely, if our life is upright, our intellect and heart will be open to welcome the light shed by the dogmas of faith” (CCC, no. 89).

He begins with definition:

By the therapeutic mentality I mean a subjectivist philosophy in which a feeling of well-being, feeling good about oneself, is the only, or dominant, criterion by which we measure what is acceptable or not to us. A good example of this mentality is found throughout the recent book by James Martin, SJ, Building a Bridge: How the Catholic Church and the LGBT Community can Enter into a Relationship of Respect, Compassion, and Sensitivity (New York: HarperOne, 2017; hereafter, BB).

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (no. 2357; hereafter, CCC) teaches: “Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered’.” Fr. Martin doesn’t cite this passage. I’ll return to this matter below. All he cites is the phrase found in CCC that the homosexual inclination is “objectively disordered” (no. 2358). After this, we see the therapeutic mentality at work in the following remark. “The phrase relates to the orientation, not the person, but it is still needlessly hurtful. Saying that one of the deepest parts of a person—the part that gives and receives love—is ‘disordered’ in itself is needlessly cruel” (BB, 46-47).

Fr. Martin doesn’t say that the problem with this term is solely with the language used that otherwise correctly describes the homosexual condition. So, let’s just change the language to describe an expression of human brokenness as a consequence of man’s fallen state. He doesn’t consider whether the term is morally right about homosexual practice; or even whether it is, however inadequately, getting at the reality of the homosexual condition.

Rather, he only considers how the term leaves one feeling about himself, hurt or abused verbally. That’s it. Read more >>

Tuesday, June 13, 2017

By Unam Sanctam Catholicam. Examining the traditional Catholic understanding of the ends of marriage relating to why homosexual relationships can never be the basis for any authentic marriage. The relation between fertility and marital union and why acts which directly impede or negate fertility are immoral.

"Brought to you by Unam Sanctam Catholicam. Do the Bible and Christian Tradition allow for any acceptance of homosexual actions? This video answers this question with a resounding 'no', addressing common objections including: homosexuality and the Old Testament prohibition on eating shellfish, St. Paul's condemnations of homosexual deviancy, the Catholic saints on homosexuality, the biological ordering of sex to procreation and more."

* NB: The SSPX chapels among those Mass sites listed above are posted here because the Holy Father has announced that "those who during the Holy Year of Mercy approach these priests of the Fraternity of St Pius X to celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation shall validly and licitly receive the absolution of their sins," and subsequently extended this privilege beyond the Year of Mercy. These chapels are not listed among the approved parishes and worship sites on archdiocesan websites.

Do any of you have an opinion about the new Coat of Arms of the Archdiocese of Detroit? Some people seem quite upset by it, like the website that calls it an "Epic Fail," and a logo rather than a coat of arms. I think the archbishop's post-synodal letter will help the viewer to understand some of the imagery in the new design, though whether you like it or not is another question. (Here are images of the designs, old on the left, new on the right.)

Dear old Fortescue's The Mass records the long debates of liturgists a century ago about where the epiclesis of the Roman Rite originally was before it ... er ... "dropped out". Their assumption, of course, was that the epiclesis was original to Christian liturgy and that the Oriental rites which preserve it were more 'primitive' than the Roman Rite. Now, happily, we know better. We see the Oriental epiclesis as a comparatively late fad in the evolving liturgical tradition. Rather than seeking traces of a lost epiclesis in the Canon Romanus, we realise that the prayer Supplices te rogamus, in which we pray that our offerings be taken to the Heavenly Altar, represents an earlier and lovelier expression of the linkage between our offering and the eternal oblation of the Eternal Son at the Heavenly Altar. Patrimony liturgists such as E C Ratcliffe played a large role here, not to mention Dom Gregory. Read more >>

Why this Gadarene preoccupation, in the 1960s, with epicleses asking the Spirit to be sent to change Bread into Body? The answer is embarrassingly simple. Pretty well all rites except the Roman had an epiclesis. Therefore it must be 'Primitive'. Therefore it was desireable. The alternative possibility, that Rome lacked an epiclesis because it was older than those other rites, occurred to very few. So, for a hundred years or more, the question had been (not why did the other rites add an epiclesis, but) Whatever Happened to the Roman Epiclesis ... deemed to have existed originally but, for some mysterious reason, to have gone missing. Readers who still have on their shelves The Mass by Adrian Fortescue can still find page after page describing the ingenious pursuits, by entire generations of clever and erudite men, of this particular invisible (well, to be frank, mythical) fox. The conviction was bolstered by an inclination to believe that all the existing rites of Christendom must have descended from an Original Liturgy which, at least in its dominant features, was fairly uniform, and could therefore, in principle, be reconstructed from a comparison of existing liturgies. This assumption, as the pendulum swings, is currently highly unfashionable; an Anglican liturgist called Paul Bradshaw has spent most of his life rebutting it. Read more >>

After meandering through a number of typically learned and eloquent distractions, the irrepressible Fr. Rutler comes round to his thesis: how the Catholic Charismatic movement, like the Montanist enthusiasms of the ancient Church, is a heretical distortion. While "not unsympathetic toward the noble integrity of John Wesley," he writes, Monsignor Ronald Knox, in his masterwork entitled Enthusiasm, "holds up the spiritist movements from the second century Montanists to the latter day Quakers, Jansenists, and Quietists as examples of how people go to extremes to confuse themselves emotionally with the Holy Spirit."

Turning his attention to Phrygia of Asia Minor in what is now Turkey during the second century, Rutler writes:

A convert priest named Montanus stirred up a lot of excitement when he confused himself with the Holy Spirit and proclaimed various “prophecies” while in a trance like a sort of divine ventriloquist. In the manner of a typical fanatic so defined, he was confident that God would agree with him if only God had all the facts. In a languid and dissolute period, the local churches already having become formalistic and arid (contrary to romantic depictions of the uniform zeal of all early Christians, and not unlike the motivation of John Wesley to stir up the dormant Church of England), the ardor of Montanus attracted many as far as North African and Rome itself, not all of whom were innocent of neurosis. Even the formidable mind of Tertullian welcomed it. Sensational outbursts of emotion were thought to be divinely inspired, and the formal clerical structure of the Church was caricatured as the sort of rigidity that quenches the spirit. Avowing that prophecy did not end with the last apostles, new messages were pronounced, false speaking in tongues pretending to be actual languages was encouraged, and women like Priscilla and Maximilla left their husbands and decided that they could be priestesses and prophetesses.

In the twentieth century, the Montanist heresy sprung up again. The Pentecostal sects, and even many Catholics were attracted to “re-awakenings” that gave the impression that the Paraclete promised by Christ who never lied had finally come awake having slumbered pretty much since the early days of the Church. While its extreme forms were bizarre, such as dancing in churches and uncontrolled laughter and barking like dogs while rolling on the floor, any quest for novelty quickly grows bored, for nothing goes out of fashion so fast as the latest fashion.

... Heresies are fads. The estimable Servant of God Father John Hardon, whose talks would never be called ecstatic, bluntly said that the modern Charismatics are Montanists. It is true that the Charismatic movement in the Catholic Church wisely was blessed insofar as it not denigrate from or add to authentic dogma. But in the second century the pope Eleutherius was inclined to condone the Montanists too, until the anti-Tertullian theologian Praxeas explained its problems.

More to it, of course, but that seems to be intended nub of something like a warning shot across the bow of the unbridled ubiquitous ebullience of the present season.

I'm not sure the discourse of the Holy Father rises (or 'sinks') to the level of academic abstraction sufficient to qualify him as a 'Postmodernist,' but when you read some of the seemingly hyperbolic praise he heaps on the likes of nihilistic Postmodern writers like Michel de Certeau (right), you can see how someone might come up with an article like that of the pro-life activist, Fred Martinez, "Pope Francis and Nihilism" (Catholic Monitor, Sunday, May 28, 2017).

More New Churches in a Traditional Style: Our Lady of Good Voyage, Boston

Continuing the theme from last week’s column, we bring to your attention two more churches newly built in a traditional style:

The Archdiocese of Boston is more recently known for closing churches, but in April it opened a new Shrine of Our Lady of Good Voyage to take the place of an older chapel. Designed by Cram & Ferguson, a Massachusetts church architecture firm featured on Extraordinary Faith whose founder designed St. Mary of Redford and Hamtramck’s St. Florian Church, the chapel is traditionally arranged and boasts a relocated and restored High Altar. [Photo by WBUR-FM]

Christendom College Chapel

Many of our readers know Christendom College in Front Royal, Virginia to be one of the most impressive orthodox Catholic institutions of higher learning around. In March the college announced that they would be offering Tridentine Mass exclusively on one Sunday per month, to ensure that all students receive exposure to it. The school already offered the Extraordinary Form on most weekdays and every Sunday (non-exclusively). Now the college is embarking on a plan to construct Christ the King Chapel, a liturgically fitting locale for the Latin Mass, complete with ornate High Altar and Communion Rail.

Restoration of Boston’s Cathedral of the Holy Cross

New construction isn’t the only good news in Boston: The Cathedral of the Holy Cross is being un-wreckovated: As part of a comprehensive restoration of the church, the High Altar, formerly reduced to non-functional decorative use, is being restored, a Communion Rail from the closed Holy Trinity Church is being installed, Side Altars are being restored [pictured], the sanctuary and statuary are being put back to a more traditional arrangement, and the carpet is being removed to improve the acoustics.
A Latin Mass community currently using the traditional but cozy lower level chapel expects to increase the frequency of holding Masses in the soon-to-be-more-hospitable-to-the-Tridentine Mass upper church.

Pentecost Octave at Old St. Patrick

Once again this year, Old St. Patrick Church in Ann Arbor is offering Tridentine Masses daily for the Octave of Pentecost. All will be High Masses, with the possible exception of Saturday, June 10. The schedule is:

[Comments? Please e-mail tridnews@detroitlatinmass.org. Previous columns are available at http://www.detroitlatinmass.org. This edition of Tridentine Community News, with minor editions, is from the St. Albertus (Detroit), Academy of the Sacred Heart (Bloomfield Hills), and St. Alphonsus and Holy Name of Mary Churches (Windsor) bulletin inserts for June 4, 2017. Hat tip to Alex Begin, author of the column.]

Saturday, June 03, 2017

In July-August 2001, Kenneth D. Whitehead, R.I.P., a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education, was a writer living in Falls Church, Virginia, and a Contributing Editor of the NOR. His latest book was One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic: The Early Church Was the Catholic Church (Ignatius, 2000).

Ideological slogans might not always seem to be very important. Sometimes, however, they can reveal basic and persistent mindsets. This is the case with the slogan that originated in the French Revolution, “No enemies to the Left.” Students of European politics will recognize that this slogan has persisted, and that the ideas behind it still apply to today’s politics.

In his 1928 classic, The French Revolution: A Monarchist History, Pierre Gaxotte describes the inexorable logic of revolutionary “progress”:

The revolutionary period was characterized by allowing successive avant-garde parties or factions to take political power while riots and disturbances in the streets dictated the actual government policies that were adopted. Against the royal court and the privileged classes, the members of the National Assembly appealed to the turbulent sectors of the capital. Even while privately deploring the excesses committed from July 13 on, they closed their eyes to them because they wanted to hold in reserve the power of the clubs and of the streets. Thus they became prisoners of the alliance they had made; they became prisoners of the formula “no enemies to the left” (pas d’ennemis à gauche).

The relative moderates initially responsible for getting the Estates General convoked in order to deal with the financial crisis of the French monarchy were very soon shunted aside by the more radical elements, who quickly resorted to extra-legal means to convert the Estates General into a National Assembly. These revolutionaries in the Assembly soon fell from power, however, giving way to yet more radical elements. Each successive party or faction that came to power faced the same ongoing, volatile revolutionary situation.

Continuing agitation in the country at large, but especially in Paris, kept the streets, the press, the factions, and the clubs in constant ferment. What was taken to be public opinion marched relentlessly forward. Yesterday’s impossible, unthinkable measure became today’s “idea whose time has come”; yesterday’s progressive Assembly member became today’s reactionary, if not traitor to the cause. The revolutionary mechanism ground mercilessly on.

Gaxotte correctly identifies one of the reasons why the more radical revolutionary elements were repeatedly able to displace the successively outmoded “progressives”: In a revolutionary climate, where events are thought to be leading ineluctably to human “liberation,” a “better world,” and the perfecting of the human condition, the more radical forces not only exhibit more consistency and determination toward attaining these ends, they also come to occupy the perceived moral high ground — they are the ones who appear truly dedicated to the cause, and thereby usually gain at least short-term popular support. Meanwhile, those who are more moderate and potentially more reasonable become awed or intimidated by the zeal of the zealots and tend to yield to them.

If, by definition, the Revolution is going to usher in freedom, eliminate oppression and injustice, and create a better world, then those who are more committed, energetic, and intolerant of any kind of compromise with injustice and oppression acquire a considerable psychological and moral advantage — while those who are or have become more lukewarm about the cause, or who, at the very least, have become concerned about their jobs or careers, can no longer effectively oppose the zealots and the true believers.

It is true that power relationships and the abilities and opportunities of individuals, as well as a host of other factors, play important roles in how a particular revolutionary situation develops; but if the whole aim of the Revolution is to clear away the obstacles on the road to human liberation, progress, and a better world, then those least deterred by moral or other considerations in the face of the obstacles encountered will be out in front of others who might have second thoughts, or even scruples, or who are otherwise deterred by various obstacles.

These are among the reasons why, in a revolutionary situation, there are “no enemies to the Left.” For it is the Left, after all, that by definition represents where the Revolution is supposed to go.

Friday, June 02, 2017

Alessandro Zangrando, Culture and Arts editor for the Venice desk of the national newspaper Corriere della Sera and Rome Correspondent for The Latin Mass magazine, writes:

Pope Francis never ceases to amaze. For readers in Argentina he has created a new weekly edition of L'Osservatore Romano. As director he has named Marcelo Figueroa, the Argentine Protestant pastor of the Presbyterian Church and director for twenty-five years of the Argentine Bible Society. Figueroa is a longtime friend of Bergoglio, who accompanied him on the famous trip to Lund, Sweden, for the celebration of the five hundredth anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation. [Source: The Latin Mass: The Journal of Catholic Culture and Tradition, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Winter/Spring 2017), p. 5]

Commenting on Confitebor's observations about the shameless papalotry represented by this pewter cross in a Catholic religious store -- a cross bearing the image of the Holy Father and the words, "Pope Francis, pray for us" -- Guy Noir - Private Eye, now our mid-Atlantic Piedmont correspondent, declared:

If every recent pope ends up canonized, what should we expect?

The cult of the saints becomes "cult like," encouraging veneration of people that ought to go to God's Son.

I used to think canonizations were exercises in papal infallibility. That confidence has been completely eroded. The modern Church has pushed its credibility on this score past the breaking point, with John Paul II himself, sadly, leading the way via removing the Devil's Advocate. Another example of how the Church's leaders do not seem overly keen to protect its enduring credibility in an age of disbelief. I just don't get it. Sanctity should not need overly aggressive PR hacks.

Please kindly pray for Hannah Cabrini, our daughter, who is scheduled to be confirmed at the Cathedral this Sunday, June 4, at the Mass of the Holy Spirit. She has chosen the Confirmation name of "Perpetua."

* NB: The SSPX chapels among those Mass sites listed above are posted here because the Holy Father has announced that "those who during the Holy Year of Mercy approach these priests of the Fraternity of St Pius X to celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation shall validly and licitly receive the absolution of their sins," and subsequently extended this privilege beyond the Year of Mercy. These chapels are not listed among the approved parishes and worship sites on archdiocesan websites.